96 Poetical Character of Denham. [VOL. 2 to the department of the Seine. Some and with the others, the derangement of pains have been taken to ascertain the their affairs, that most frequently prodifferent causes of mental derangement. duces this effect. The calamities of the It appears that among the maniacs the revolution were another cause of madness number of women is generally greater in both sexes: and it is worthy of rethan that of men. Among the younger mark, that the men were mad with females, love is the most common cause aristocracy, the women with democracy. of insanity; and among the others, Excessive grief occasioned lunacy in the jealousy or domestic discord. Among men ; whereas the minds of the females the younger class of males, it is the too were deranged by ideas of independence speedy development of the passions; and equality.-New Mon.M. May 1817. WHEN POETICAL CHARACTER OF DENHAM. From the European Magazine. --decies repetita placebit. by introducing moral, political, and hisWill please the more, the oftener re-perused. torical reflections, he has given an addiTHEN an author has acquired un- tional charm and interest to the whole. usual celebrity by a small com- He has pourtrayed the rapacious and position, it is natural to inquire into the despotic Henry the Eighth in just and circumstances on which that celebrity is vivid colours; he has so expressed himfounded. Perhaps no literary performance self on the subject of the Thames, as to of equal size ever conferred upon its wri- have associated his name with that river, ter a portion of fame equal to that which so long as that river shall run; and who Denham derived from his 'Cooper's Hill.' can read his description of the Hunted To what has this been owing? Was it be- Stag, without mixed emotions of melancause, according to Johnson, it was the choly delight? first specimen among British authors of But if Cooper's Hill has many beaulocal poetry? Doubtless this was a prin- ties, it has also some imperfections. The cipal cause; though Shakspeare had long versification is in many places rugged before introduced into one of his plays a and inharmonious; and we too often beautiful sketch of real local scenery, in meet with sentences continued from the the instance of Dover Cliff. Still, how- end of one line into the beginning of ever, Cooper's Hill may be considered another, (a beauty in blank verse, but a as the first distinct and complete speci- fault in couplet composition), instead of men in the English language of land- having the expression completed with scape poetry embracing objects not ficti- the word that rhymes. The illustrations tious, but real. This, therefore, was the are sometimes absurd and unnatural. principal cause of the author's celebrity; For instance : yet this alone would not have been suffi- As rivers lost in seas, some secret vein cient; other concurring circumstances Thence reconveys, there to be lost again. must be joined with it; namely, the Never was a river lost in the sea, and choice of landscape, and the manner in thence reconveyed by any secret vein or which it has been executed. subterraneous channel, therein to be lost The point of view which Denham se- again, except in a poet's fancy. lected exhibited grand and interesting Again; the comparison of the Thames scenery. London is the farthest range to a bird in the act of incubation, of the eye-here the royal battlements of O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing, Windsor-there the ruins of an ancient And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring, abbey-the plain of Runnymede-and the Thames majestically flowing in the fore-ground. It must be confessed that the poet has is without fitness or dignity. There is much obscurity, if not uniotelligibility in the following lines: depicted with great spirit the various ob- Can knowledge have no bound, but must ad jects that appeared before him; and that vance So far, to make us wish for ignorance, VOL. 2.] Present State of the Greeks in Asia-Minor. And rather in the dark to grope our way, 97 But wealth is crime enough to him that's poor. And when describing that tyrant's abuse of power, he says, But princes' swords are sharper than their styles. Like a declining statesman left forlorn And again : As before remarked, the character of Henry the Eighth is well delineated. But why lament so much over the destruction of an abbey? The suppression of mo- When depicting the distress and perplexnastic institutions was a happy event for ity of the Hunted Stag ; Great Britain, although we cannot but execrate the motives which actuated the person by whom that work was accom→ plished. In this instance, the vices of the Sovereign, paradoxical as it may Finds that uncertain ways unsafest are, sound, were a blessing to the nation. And doubt a greater mischief that despair. After all, it may be doubted whether Then on the relative condition between the descriptive poem under considera- the sovereign and the people : tion would have conferred upon its author that high degree of celebrity which it did, but for the number of general reflections or axioms with which it abounds; as, when mentioning the inhabitants of the metropolis, the poet says, Tyrant and slave, those names of hate and fear, Where with like haste, tho' several ways they this poem are full of animation and just sentiment; and the concluding simile is CAPT. BEAUFORT'S VOYAGE. From the Monthly Magazine. [Captain BEAUFORT's Voyage along the South limits, even of the present states, cannot Coast of Asia-Minor, just from the press, is be ascertained with any precision. Sheltered from all effectual control of the Porte by the great barrier of Mount Taurus, the half-independent and turbulent pashas, amongst whom they are par a work of little pretension, but of great merit. He was permitted by the admiralty to make this Survey in a national frigate, and he bas rendered his voyage highly subservient to the interests of literature. Few parts of the world are more interesting to lovers of ancient history and classical antiquities than these provinces; and the celled, are engaged in constant petty hos wretched aspect of misery and desolation which they present, affords to political econom.sts and moralists an effective example of the dire consequences of despotism. It appears that the sea, which formerly had retreated from this coast, is encroaching again; and some other facts will prove interesting to geological inquirers.] KARAMANIA. HE name of Karamania is commonly applied, by Europeans, to that mountainous tract of country which forms the southern shore of Asia-Minor; but, however convenient such a general appellation may be, as a geographical distinction, it is neither used by the present inhabitants, nor is it recognized as the seat of government. The names and boundaries of the ancient provinces are obliterated; and the 0 ATHENEUM. Vol. 2. tilities with each other; so that their respective frontiers change with the issue of every skirmish. Groaning under that worst kind of despotism, this unfortunate country has been a continued scene of anarchy, rapine, and contention: her former cities are deserted, her fertile vallies untilled,-and her rivers and harbours idle. This country was colonized by that redundant population of ancient Greece, which had gradually spread over the rest of Asia-Minor, and which had every where introduced the same splendid conceptions, the same superiority in the arts, that had immortalized the parent country: it was once the seat of learning and riches, and the theatre of some of the most celebrated cvents that history an 98 Captain Beaufort's Voyage. folds it was signalized by the exploits of Cyrus and Alexander; and was dignified by the birth and labours of the illustrious apostle of the Gentiles. THE BURNING BUSH. We had seen from the ship, the preceding night, a small but steady light among the hills: on mentioning the circumstance to the inhabitants, we learned that it was a yanar, or volcanic flame, and they offered to supply us with horses and guides to examine it. We rode about two miles, through a fertile plain, partly cultivated; and then winding up a rocky and thickly wooded glen, we arrived at the place. In the inner corner of a ruined building the wall is undermined, so as to leave an aperture of about three feet diameter, and shaped like the mouth of an oven;-from thence the flame issues, giving out an intense heat, yet producing no smoke on the wall and, tho' from the neck of the opening we detached some small lumps of caked soot, the walls were hardly discoloured. Trees, brushwood, and weeds, grow close round this little crater; a small stream trickles down the hill hard by, and the ground does not appear to feel the effect of its heat at more than a few feet distance. The hill is composed of the crumbly serpentine already mentioned, with occasional loose blocks of lime stone, and we perceived no volcanic productions whatever in the neighbourhood. [VOL. 2 ably this is the place to which Pliny alludes in the following passage:-"Mount Chimæra, near Phaselis, emits an unceasing flame, that burns day and night." We did not, however, perceive that the adjacent mountains of Hephaestia were quite so inflammable as he describes them. The late Colonel Rooke, who lived for many years among the islands of the Archipelago, informed me that, high up on the western mountain of Samos, he had seen a flame of the same kind, but that it was intermittent. Five miles north-east from Deliktash there are some small uninhabited islands, called by Turks and Greeks, the Three Islands. They are unnoticed by Strabo and Ptolemy, but are probably the Three barren Cypria of Pliny. Opposite to these islands, and about five miles in shore, is the great mountain of Takhtalu. The base, which is composed of the crumbly rock before. mentioned, is irregularly broken into deep ravines, and covered with small trees; the middle zone appears to be limestone, with scattered evergreen bushes; and its bold summit rises in an insulated peak 7,800 feet above the sea. There were a few streaks of snow left on the peak in the month of August; but many of the distant mountains of the interior were completely white for nearly a fourth down their sides. It may be inferred from thence, that the elevation of this part of Mount Taurus is not less than 10,000 feet, which is equal to that of Mount Etna. At a short distance, lower down the side of the hill, there is another hole, which has apparently been at some time It is natural that such a striking feathe vent of a similar flame; but our guide ture as this stupendous mountain, in a asserted, that in the memory of man, country inhabited by an illiterate and there had been but the one, and that it had credulous people, should be the subject never changed its present size or ap- of numerous tales and traditions: accordpearance. It was never accompanied, ingly we were informed by the peasants, he said, by earthquakes or noises; and it that there is a perpetual flow of the purejected no stones, smoke, nor any nox- est water from the very apex; and that, ious vapours-nothing but a brilliant and notwithstanding the snow, which we perpetual flame, which no quantity of saw still lingering in the chasms, roses water could quench. The shepherds, blow there all the year round. The he added, frequently cooked their vic- agha of Deliktash assured us that every tuals there; and he affirmed, with equal autumn a mighty groan is heard to issue composure, that it was notorious that the from the summit of the mountain, louder yanar would not roast meat which had than the report of any cannon, but unacbeen stolen. companied by fire or smoke. He professed his ignorance of the cause; but, on being pressed for his opinion, he This phenomenon appears to have existed here for many ages; as unquestion VOL. 2.] Present State of the Greeks in Asia-Minor. 99 gravely replied, that he believed it was tall tree, frequently a plum or an apricot; an annual summons to the elect to make the tendrils reach the loftiest as well as the best of their way to Paradise. How the lowest branches, and the tree thus ever amusing the agha's theory, it may seems to be loaded with a double crop of possibly be true that such explosions take fruit. Nothing can present a more deplace. The mountain artillery described lightful appearance than the intimately by Captains Lewis and Clarke, in their blended greens and the two species of travels in North America, and similar fruit, luxuriantly mingled. How allurphenomena which are said to have occur- ing to the parched and weary traveller red in South America, seem to lend some in these sun-burned regions! and in probability to the account. They have none perhaps will he meet with a more also a tradition, that, when Moses fled hearty welcome. In the Turkish from Egypt, he took up his abode near character there is a striking contrast of this mountain, which was therefore called good and bad qualities;-though insaMoossa-daghy, or the mountain of Mo- tiably avaricious, a Turk is always hosses. May there not be some fanciful pitable, and frequently generous; though connexion between this story and the to get, and that by any means, seems to Yanar already described? That place and this mountain are not many miles asunder; and the flame issuing from the thicket there, may have led to some confused association, with the burning-bush on Mount Horeb, recorded in Exodus. be the first law of his nature, to give is not the last. The affluent Mussulman freely distributes his aspers; the needy traveller is sure of receiving refreshment, and sometimes even the honour of sharing his pipe. His religion binds him to supply his greatest enemy with bread and water; and, on the public roads, From this singular spot we returned khans, where gratuitous lodging is given, by a different road, and halted at some and numerous fountains for the benefit Turkish huts, or (more properly speak- of the thirsty passenger and his cattle, ing) heaps of loose stones, which, scarce- have been constructed by individual bely arranged into walls, support, by way nevolence. THE COUNTRY. THE RAMAZAN. of roof, a covering of branches, leaves, In this point of view, the character of and grass; neither chimney nor window the modern Greeks would ill bear a comwas to be seen; and nothing more parison with that of their oppressors. wretched can be conceived than these Such a comparison, however, would be habitations. This, however, applies only unfair, for slavery necessarily entails a to the outside; for, on our approach, the peculiar train of vices; but it may be ladies had quickly retreated to their hoped, that the growing energy, which houses, and our infidel eyes were not must one day free them from political allowed to peep into those hallowed pre- slavery, will also emancipate them from cincts. In fine weather (and in that cli- its moral effects. mate three-fourths of the year are fine) the men live under the shade of a tree. To the branches are suspended their The Ramazan is a fast of a month's hammocks and their little utensils; on duration, and is kept with real strictness; the ground they spread carpets, upon the traveller and the sick being alone which the day is chiefly passed in smok- exempted from its restraints. Between ing; a mountain-stream, near which sun-rise and sun-set the Turks abstain they always chuse this umbrageous abode, from all victuals, and (what is to them a serves for their ablutions and their bever- far more rigorous sacrifice,) from the use age; and the rich clusters of grapes, of tobacco. The rich and the idle, inwhich hang from every branch of the deed, suffer but little; they sleep during tree, invite them to the ready repast. the day, and feast and smoke all night; The vines are not cultivated in this but the labouring classes feel it severely, part of Asia, in the same manner as in particularly when this fast, which takes the wine countries, where each plant is place every twelfth lunar month, occurs every year pruned down to the bare during the long and sultry days of sumstalk: they are here trained up to some mer. It is a singular incongruity in the 100 The Wanderer. [VOL. 2 human mind, that the more burdensome rigid do we find the observance of its is the ritual of any religion, the more injunctions and prohibitions, Concluded in our next. From the European Magazine. Chapter I. THE WANDERER. every time he has come down, but never THE Major threw himself into a cor- so bad as this before."-This he accomner of the chaise, and fell into a panied with touching his hat at every kind of waking nap, in which the gay syllable, and repeating "Your Honor" visions of Hope were mingled, such as at the end of every word, according to you may fancy (to save me the trouble the rule most religiously observed by all of describing them) to occupy the mind post-boys.-Maurice stopped his excuses, of a man just arrived from the East by inquiring whether there was any Indies, and enduring all the miseries of house near where the chaise could be travelling during a December night in sufficiently repaired to enable him to conunfrequented cross roads, impelled by tinue his journey. The lad said that the strong desire of once more beholding there was a small ale-house at a short the authors of his being and the place of distance, but that he doubted whether his birth-he was fancying the mingled at that hour he should be able to propleasure and surprise of his revered cure any assistance. Maurice was much parents, on their beholding him after a vexed; his anxiety to reach his home, period of ten years--when time had then but a few miles distant, had been transformed the fair boy of fifteen, who gradually increasing as he drew nearer, with a heavy heart left their fostering and now his hopes were likely to be care, seeking fame and fortune in a disappointed; the darkness was impeforeign clime, to the full-grown man, netrable on either side, and a violent who returned with rank and riches equal thunder-storm, accompanied with a heavy to his loftiest ambition. rain, began to pour upon them. He He was indulging most luxuriously desired the boy to go on to the house he in these fairy visions, when the pos- had mentioned; who taking one of the tillion, with a carelessness usual to his chaise lamps in his hand, and leaving fraternity, in galloping his horses down the horses, of whose running away he a steep declivity, threw down one of said there was not the least danger, one the unfortunate animals; and the chaise being lamed with the fall and the other overturning, broke at the same moment quite blind, they proceeded to the house, one of the wheels and the chain of the which was within a few hundred yards. Major's thought, in a manner no less abrupt than unpleasant. Luckily he was not hurt; and having extricated himself from the shattered vehicle, he vented his anger in some pretty sharp reproofs on the luckless driver, who made all possible attempts to avert his displeasure, by assuring him, that the fault lay in the horse, or rather in the horse-dealer-" Please your honor," said he, "it's all the fault o' that cheating tyke, Ralph Martingale, the Yorkshire horse-dealer-he warranted the horse sound wind and limb, and free from blemish, only a week ago-and now he turns out both lame and blind; he has been out only three times, and A comfortable fire in a large sanded kitchen, the only sitting room in the house, greeted him on the door being opened; the rustics who surrounded it instantly drew away to make room for the stranger. Maurice took off his coat; and while the boy was gone with the man who officiated as waiter, boots, hostler, &c. &c. to ascertain the damage done to the chaise, he sat down before the fire, to observe the characters in the room. On a bench at the further end sate some labourers, who were discussing over their evening draughts the affairs of their different masters and the state of crops, &c. in the same manner as the mechanics of London talk of the |